Lessons from Life’s Unexpected Spaces
Guest Blog by Anne Pia
Welcome back to our Book Week Scotland guest blog series! Today, we turn to Anne Pia, the author of Magnaccioni.
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Chance has decreed that I spend some time during these Autumn months stopping, reflecting, taking a long breath. My general approach is to let life happen within a broader framework of daily commitments and activities. Like most people my weeks are usually full, writing commitments, music with the band, meeting friends, gym classes and the like. But I often find that it’s the spaces between, where real life is to be found. Life’s dynamic, the place where you are unprotected, open, defenceless when you find you have to act, summoning all your resources..emotional, physical and mental.
The car that came from nowhere that thankfully didn’t hit me but left me broken on the road opened up one such space. More importantly, apart from the trauma of it all, the inability to move, to be carried to the safety of a pavement by passersby, what I will always remember, what I experienced for the first time in my life, is unreserved, giving, kindness and care…the rugs that came from nearby shops; the man who held me close and shared his body heat while we waited for help, the passing doctor, an AnE consultant who even tried to hail an ambulance such was the endless wait. I’d never been on a stretcher before or been given gas and air by two warm friendly ambulance men who distracted me with conversation about the joys of playing music with people.
What I learned in those minutes of knowing I was falling, knowing it would be catastrophic, lying unable to move, was dependence; and for the first time in my life, I accepted my own vulnerability. I embraced it. And I let that great tidal wave of love and care which swept in, carry me to safety and ultimate healing I hope. There were other first times and learnings too. The nearness and availability of consultants, always with the broader view; the jokes with the theatre porters and talk of eccentric mothers-in-law and obsessions with Botox. The deliciousness of soup… made in the hospital and the only edible option in my view. The patient-focused approach always; as I prevaricated when the local anaesthetic didn’t take, the flexibility and time to think, surgeons willing to wait patiently while I faced down my nemesis of a general anaesthetic and their care as I let them take me through those doors to oblivion. On the plus side, I also realised that all those years of half marathon and marathon training, time spent in the gym, yoga, Pilates, step counting, fresh food, obsession with my greens and “ there’s never too much olive oil” are serving some purpose.
Time to be grateful… the best route to happiness certainly. Time to recognise the great depth of love that surrounds me and to delight in concern from unexpected places. Time to stand in the open air and breathe that glorious freshness of autumn air and feel the gift of sunshine. And while my new hip beds down and I learn how to use my broken wrist again, hours to write uninterrupted, albeit with one hand.
